Stephen Onimisi Obajaja, Esq.
It was in the year of our Lord, 2004 when I went to see my Uncle, Chief Felix Oriloye Adebola (Daddy) in Igarra with a burdened heart. I was in a quandary. I just qualified as a Legal Practitioner the year before and I did not know what to do with my life. I was not quite sure about what I wanted out of life and I was not to know what twists and turns life was to take. I laid my fears and my troubles before Daddy. He looked at me and sighed. Then he uttered these exact words: “Dayo how old are you? I started again at fifty when I returned to the farm with many mouths to feed – my parents, my wives, brothers/sisters and my not inconsiderable number of Children”.
Daddy went on to speak philosophically about the future. He zeroed in on the subject of fortitude and told me how a young man who continues to strive had his future – usually a life of success – laid before him. Needless to say it was a very happy young Lawyer armed with the sage words of Daddy who returned to Lagos at the end of that visit to face life fair and square. It was like him this way to show empathy and inspire us to greater deeds. It is remarkable that one year shy of two decades since Daddy made those profound statements to me they still hold true!
I can vividly recall many of these other encounters with Daddy in my adult life until he breathed his last on the evening of the 23rd of December, 2022 when ironically I was about 30 minutes away from Igarra on my way from Lagos. It was a visit I was sure would have engendered another edifying encounter with him at some point. This was not always the case in our younger years growing up in Igarra of that time though. Conversations between an Uncle/father and their children were not always an easy thing. It was a time of command from a superior to an inferior being.
We grew up in a house where Daddy, the master of the house was cut from the old cloth of men who ruled their households’ with a huge iron fist and a small velvet glove. We grew up in Igarra at a time when most homes were polygamous homes but if truth be told, Daddy was a rare breed, a man who commanded his house like the emperors of old did. Interestingly and by God, we had a wonderful and happy childhood still.
Daddy was such a man who earned loyalty and respect from all and sundry. For if it was not so he could not have commanded his household as he did. If we had the same circumstances now and we live the same life he lived, I doubt we would do as half a decent job as he did raising all of us in his time. Daddy was so good and authoritative that his word was law. When he spoke, his words were royal edicts and not a call to debate. You won’t find that anywhere today. But trust me, I and my soul mate of the time, Daddy’s son, Adebola Ilesanmi still found ways to outwit a very strict and strong Daddy on occasions.
Daddy was indeed the man of my maternal home where I was raised even though my aged grandfather and grandmother lived under the same roof. Daddy lived a life of devotion to his parents. We watched him provide everything for them at old age until his father passed on Christmas day 1988 and his mother in 1992 unto eternal glory. Our God who keeps covenants truly blessed him with a long and good life as he promised everyone who honored their parents. He showed the same devotion to his larger Anona family and he was a “Churchman” who showed the greatest devotion to the cause of the Lord and the Church. He served and held positions of trust in his local parish of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), St. James’ Cathedral, Ugbogbo, Igarra Diocese.
Daddy raised everyone – his brothers, sisters, children, nephews and nieces with the same firm hand and with no discrimination whatsoever. He ensured that everyone had enough to eat. He paid for our education and saw to it that everyone who showed the requisite aptitude went on to the University or Polytechnic to earn a degree and or learnt a trade worth their while. Of course Daddy was a disciplinarian of Spartan precision. He never spared the rod and he administered his ‘koboko’ in generous doses. I and Ilesanmi took more than a fair share of this as we were quite adept at getting into trouble.
Looking back at Daddy’s success in raising so many people, it must have helped that we lived in a very large and extended family compound with many mothers and an array of Cousins, Uncles and Aunts who looked out for everyone at the time. Today people prefer a small nuclear family setting forgetting that the extended family life had its advantages. The quest for independence, materialism and selfishness accounts for this problem today. The extended family of old was the buffer, the bulwark of protection against an unjust Society that buffets man – the social security of old if you ask me!
One example will suffice to buttress the social security the extended family system was. I am sure many reading this will relate with the example that follows. In those days, a young man’s education in Igarra was a family project. A community project even! It was unheard of that a young man could not pay his way through University because his parents were poor. The family will pool resources. Everyone – immediate, extended family members, friends and well wishers – will contribute their widow’s mite because they realized that with a University education, a young man had a better shot at success and at pulling his family and others out of virulent poverty.
It was men like Daddy who made the extended family system work. In Igarra’s past experience, it truly took a village to raise a child!
The most important virtue I learnt from Daddy however is that of commitment. He lived a life of commitment to all those whom he owed a duty of care and he extended this to others he was not even remotely directly responsible for. His life of commitment was exemplified by his relationship with my mother (his younger Sister). They had time for each other. You could tell from a distance that they were devoted to each other. I dare say their relationship is a fine example for the younger generation to follow.
This life of commitment to each other which inspire us still started from when my mother was but a child. At a time, when it was a rarity, her disciplinarian but far sighted father with the active and unequivocal support of Daddy saw a precocious kid in Awawu as they called her as a child and resolved to allow her to get Western education long before it became fashionable to do so in Igarra.
In pursuit of that resolve she attended St. James’ Anglican School in Igarra briefly. She then left Igarra and went to live with Daddy in Imeri, a town that was in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, Western Region, the Midwest Region, the old Bendel and later Edo State at the time until the boundary adjustment by the National Boundaries Commission now situates the town in Ondo State.
In Imeri she obtained her Primary Six School Leaving Certificate at St. Matthew’s Primary School, Imeri. After her Primary School education she attended Anglican Modern School, Okpe, also in Akoko –Edo LGA still under the auspices of her gracious elder brother. With Daddy’s full support, she then proceeded to the then Anglican Girls Grammar School, Ibillo now known as Federal Government College, Ibillo, also in Akoko–Edo LGA where she obtained her West African School Leaving Certificate with distinction.
My mother went on to train as a nurse and midwife at the State School of Midwifery, St. Camillus Hospital, Uromi and later the State School of Nursing, Agbor still with the active support of Daddy at all times. When she started her work life it meant she was always going to be away from Igarra for long periods as she served in Auchi and Ibillo in latter years for many years until she retired.
In all that time Daddy took care of all that concerned my mother in Igarra. I always lived under Daddy’s wings from Primary School all through Secondary School and my University days. Similarly when my siblings were to go to Secondary School, they were all shipped back to Igarra to go to School and Daddy took all of them under his wings under the same roof and treated all of us as he did his own Children. All of us – I and my siblings were raised in his house.
As Daddy has now been committed to mother earth, it is time to celebrate his time, legacy and the life of devotion and commitment which he lived. He was certainly a giant amongst men, a scion of the great Anona family, a churchman who left his footprints on the sands of time. The life he lived and the marked marks he made in the life of those of us he raised and other members of society who knew him is indelible and he will live forever in the lives of everyone whose good fortune he helped to shape.
Sleep well Daddy until you awaken to eternal life on resurrection morning when the course of this ephemeral world is ran.
Stephen Onimisi Obajaja, Esq.
Fountain Court Partners
Lagos.
